Experience Design Students Explore Choreographic Objects

January 17, 2019

Students from the Spring 2019 Experience Design course, Design for Behavior and Experience, led by professor Kristian Kloeckl, took their learning to new heights, literally, while navigating William Forsythe’s Choreographic Objects exhibition at the Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) in Boston’s Seaport District.The exhibit invites guests to interact with the works physically, engaging in activities such as climbing through a room suspended on gymnastics’ rings, crawling through a space beneath a three-foot ceiling, or attempting – and failing – to hold a feather duster perfectly still.The challenges are…challenging, posing problems that must be solved through movement and interaction.In the process participants may at times be surprised by their physical prowess, while also being forced to confront their physical limitations, while throughout the experience being encouraged by Forsythe to “persist.”

Drawing on this experience, students will be prototyping design interventions that consider how objects influence our experiences and environments, and our being and acting in this world.